Free Mahmoud Khalil

On Saturday night, US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unlawfully detained Mahmoud Khalil, a lead organizer and negotiator for the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University. ICE agents informed Mahmoud that his green card had been revoked, and his whereabouts within the vast infrastructure of the immigrant carceral system are currently unknown.

The detention and rendition of Mahmoud comes in the wake of a concerted doxxing campaign by Zionist organizations and individuals, including faculty members at Columbia University. Khalil’s extralegal detention and possible deportation is an extraordinary escalation in the current administration’s crackdown on Palestine solidarity. The university’s complicity in this detention likewise attests to the ongoing failure of institutions of higher education to divest from Zionism and repudiate the rising tides of authoritarianism in the United States.

We encourage you to sign onto this petition organized by Deportation Defense, which will automatically send a letter on your behalf to relevant US officials and university employees, demanding the release of Mahmoud from ICE detention.

You can follow the latest updates in Mahmoud’s case here.

London: Palestine Literature and Film Symposium, 11 March

Tomorrow at Cambridge, the Postcolonial and Related Literatures Research Seminar presents a one-day symposium on Palestinian Literature and Film.

This day-long event will centre Palestinian cultural production through film screenings, talks, and discussions. This is a free event and open to all but requires registration, which can be done by following this link.

The day is divided into sessions and tickets can be booked either for the whole day (all sessions) or for specific sessions you would like to attend. All sessions will be held in the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio at the Faculty of English at University of Cambridge.

You can read the full program on the Cambridge website and register at the Eventbrite page.

New York and LA: The US Debut of Heiny Srour’s Leila and the Wolves

Lebanese filmmaker Heiny Srour will be coming to the United States for the first North American theatrical release of her extraordinary film Leila and the Wolves.

A major work of Arab cinema, Lebanese filmmaker Heiny Srour’s first narrative feature (following her landmark documentary The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived) is a gorgeously realized poetic evocation of the collective memory of Arab women across the twentieth century, using elements of fiction and documentary to restore the central role of Palestinian and Lebanese women to the resistance movements of the era.

With a clear-eyed, unsentimental gaze, the film follows a young Lebanese woman (Nabila Zeitouni) who, in modern-day London, stages a photo exhibition about Arab women, but her research allows her to travel back in time to witness and participate in various junctures of memory and struggle.

Shot on location in England, Syria, and Lebanon—often clandestinely, as the Lebanese Civil War was raging—Leila and the Wolves bravely weaves together oral tradition, folklore, myth and archival footage to elegantly reconstruct oft-ignored political and social contributions to history.

In New York, the film will be screened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music March 14-March 20; Srour will join for post-screening discussion on March 14 and 16. BAM is also screening her documentary The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived March 16-19.

In Los Angeles, the film will be screened at Mezzanine at 2220 Arts, where Srour will be in conversation with writer and organizer Fariha Róisín.

The film will be screened in additional cities across North America, including Toronto, Dallas, Vancouver, Chicago, Montreal, Seattle, Cleveland, and more.

For details, and to reserve tickets, click here.

Book of the Week

Tatreez — elaborate hand-embroidery — is an ancient Palestinian craft characterised by remarkable beauty and complexity. In Stitching the Intifada: Embroidery and Resistance in Palestine, Rachel Dedman begins by exploring the regional diversity of historic Palestinian dress before delving into the transformation of tatreez after the 1948 Nakba.

From its evolution into a symbol of the nation, to its powerful presence during the First Intifada, and reimagination by contemporary artists, tatreez in Palestine embodies many forms of personal and public resistance. 

Proceeds from this book will be donated to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, whose mission is to provide humanitarian assistance as well as health and social services to Palestinians whenever and wherever needed. 

You can purchase Stitching the Intifada directly from Common Threads Press.

Reading Roundup

I Was Sand – A new poem from Gazan poet Nasser Rabah’s forthcoming collection, translated by Ammiel Alcalay, Emna Zghal, and Khaled Al-Hilli: “I was sand, like any other, so ordained for my simplicity that time was of no concern to me, nor distance, nor the passersby.”

'How Life Is in There' – Selma Dabbagh writes about the widespread practice of administrative detention through which thousands of Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons without charges, tracing this practice back to the British mandate era.

Archiving Gaza: The Race to Save Evidence of War Crimes and Mass Destruction – Lila Hassan describes the assiduous and exhaustive work that Palestinian journalists and researchers are doing to document the evidence of Israel’s genocide, generating archives across the Gaza strip that are themselves facing destruction.

Will Scholars Take a Stand Against Scholasticide in Gaza? – Van Gosse examines the ongoing fallout in the discipline of history after the American Historical Association refused to allow a vote on a petition condemning scholasticide and the destruction of history in Gaza.

Making the Bloom a Desert – Sara El-Solh writes about Israel’s “obsessively manicured mythology of self,” its “fanatical fixation with presenting its own cruel and bloody genesis as wholesome, pure, and fruitful” in order to legitimize the erasure and expulsion of Palestinians.

A War Zone Pediatrician on What Comes After the Horrors of a Gaza Emergency Room – Dr. Seema Jilani, who worked as a pediatrician at Al-Aqsa Hospital in January 2024, writes about how the neutering of her testimonies by Western media institutions has forced her to confront the failures of humanitarianism.

Greater Israel isn't Just Biblical Delusion, It's Zionism's DNA – Emad Moussa argues that the Zionist expansionism we are witnessing today – in Lebanon and Syria – is both the logical culmination of Zionist ideology, and mere prelude to further territorial ambitions from the Nile to the Euphrates. 

I'm a Former BBC Newsreader - Gaza is the Reason I Resigned – Karishma Patel writes about how the BBC’s craven commitments to impartiality have led to long-standing and deliberate distortions of the truth about Israel’s violence against Palestinians.

Death Sentence for Health Sector as Israel Closes Gaza Crossings – Nora Barrows-Friedman surveys the scarcity of food, water, and necessary medical supplies in Gaza due to the Israeli government’s recent blockades of foreign aid.

Adjacent Constellations & Other Poems – New poems from Fady Joudah: “After the genocide, the genocide.” 

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